Clumsy with chopsticks but can't live without them... ** I don't post English translations of Japanese recipes without permissions from the recipe authors. But feel free to contact me about the dishes you're interested in.

Favorite Foodblogs

About Me

"OBACHAN" means a "middle-aged woman" or "aunty" in Japanese.
.*************************. Having moved back to my hometown in April 2009, I live in one of the desperately underpopulated areas in Japan now. Let me share my life in a real countryside with aging parents living in the same house. And here in Muroto -- the place where I chose to live -- you can hear the heartbeat of the Earth! ;)

My Other Blogs

Special Thanks to:

The contents of this blog created by me (text/comments and photos) are licensed under a Creative Commons License. Copyrights of free web graphics used in this site and comments made by others belong to the creators of those works.

Sunday, May 15, 2005

OK, it’s time to show the world the result of my ill-thought project that took me all-afternoon Friday and all day Saturday this weekend. Wondering what this is? This is “quasi-Kaiseki” by a middle-aged woman in Kochi who had nothing better to do this weekend.

( ** I guess I should add this here to be honest and fair to the readers...Note: I didn't make and eat all of these dishes at one time. I made some on Friday and took photos and ate them then. The rest was prepared/ate on Saturday, some in the morning and some in the afternoon. I made all photos into one kaiseki entry on Sunday ... that's why it's called "quasy-kaiseki." ;P )

The kaiseki course I had with my mom last weekend actually triggered my tempura craving, so my original plan was making tempura and some kind of konatsu dessert this weekend. On Tuesday I made some kinome-miso and had some of it left, so I needed to use it up somehow. Then a crazy idea just popped up in my mind…as usual. What about making some other dishes and making my own virtual kaiseki course on my blog?

Of course I can’t make real, formal kaiseki. That requires professional skills you can acquire only after years of training, and there seem to be numerous traditional rules regarding what kind of dish or bowl should be used for what kind of food in which season, etc. I don’t mean to insult our wonderful tradition by giving it a try without the skill and knowledge…I just wanted to be more familiar with our tradition.

Kaiseki is said to have originated from Zen practice, as explained in this site. As the site says, it is still served at tea ceremony. On the other hand, according to some Japanese websites, “kaiseki” also developed as formal party food as rich samurais or merchants got together for haiku (Japanese poem ) meetings at high-class traditional restaurants in Edo period. Sometimes different Chinese characters are used in writing to distinguish these 2 kinds of kaiseki, but not very strictly.

It seems that the rules for kaiseki at restaurants are more flexible than at tea ceremony. I adopted a very basic (simplified than tea-ceremony kaiseki) course of kaiseki and terminology, but omitted steamed dish.Enjoy!---------

So, everyone, this is the result of my crazy attempt.I mean, everything didn’t turn out really GREAT, but most things tasted OK, and it just made me feel good to find that I was able to make something that “look like” traditional Japanese dishes. More than anything, it was a fun learning experience. I had fun thinking about which dish/bowl to use for which food and what I can use for garnishing…(I picked some weeds and flowers on the roadside.) Maybe what I did was quite off the wall from a “formal” point of view, but oh well, maybe at least I gave some experts of Japanese cuisine something to laugh about and brightened up their day ;)

You did a wonderful "informal" kaiseki. Everything looks so delicious and I admire your patience and perseverance. I would have never taken the time to do something like this, however, now that I have a shokado bento box I have some ideas...

> ting aling --- I had such a junk-food craving after the kaiseki weekend, so I ended up with Big Mac. LOL!

> MrsT --- No, not in one meal. Actually in real Kaiseki, you eat this much in one meal, being served one dish at a time. So a formal kaiseki dinner usually takes about 1.5 to 2 hours. But to tell you the truth, I made some of these on Friday and ate them then (took photos before eating), made and ate some for lunch Saturday, and the rest for supper Saturday night. I just posted the whole thing as one kaiseki entry. Cheating!! Hahaha….

Tea --- Thanks. Well, I guess you noticed that I only chose the dishes that are not too hard to make. These are nothing more than regular meals in average Japanese households and most housewives can make these real quick. But in my case, it was taking pics of those dishes that made it a real time-consuming project….

Ahhhh….hazukashiii.I guess Japanese readers can tell right away that these are just easy, every-day meal dishes, and calling these “kaiseki” is pretty laughable. But anyway, it was fun….maybe it was a “mamagoto asobi” by a grown-up. ;P Sorry about making you homesick.